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Botany and mycology: Collection

Botany

The botanical collection – consisting of the herbarium (plants and algae) and the fungarium (fungi and slime moulds) – comprises a total of around one million individual specimens. Botanical collections are of outstanding scientific importance and are also an important cultural asset. Special features of the Stuttgart herbarium are collections from the second Kamchatka expedition (1733 - 1743) by Alexander Wilhelm Martini (1702 - 1781), current reference material for documenting the change of species in SW Germany as well as numerous other European, Mediterranean and African specimens.

History

The oldest specimens in the herbarium STU date from the period 1740-1742. At that time, Johann Georg Gmelin travelled together with Alexander Wilhelm Martini  across Siberia on behalf of the Russian Czarina. Martini collected a large amount of Botanical specimens. A part of this material was incorporated in the Royal “Naturalienkabinett” (Natural History Collection) in Stuttgart. It later became part of the foundations for the “General Herbarium” (STU) at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart. Further large collections from the early days of the “General Herbarium” were the “Herbarium of the Central Register of the Agricultural Association (1865 – 1945) and the “Herbarium of the Society for Natural History in Württemberg”. In 1907 the “Herbarium Hegelmaier” was incorporated. With 700 fascicles and 25.000 species it was the largest and scientifically most important single acquisition. The modern herbarium STU continues to grow by the addition of collections from private collectors and the research outputs of its scientists.

Collections

Ferns and flowering plants
630,000, with ca. 2,350 types
Mosses and liverworts
200,000, with ca. 230 types
Lichens
105,000, with ca. 525 types
Fungi (without lichens)
47,000, with ca. 630 types
Algae
10,000, with ca. 90 types

Collections